Possibiliies of finding work

[Josq]

Hi,
I'm a British masters graduate in a IT field and I'd love it if I found a job abroad, Finland is one of the countries at the top of my list (perhaps the...but I hate favouritism). Lovely people, some nice cities, socialism and saunas...
The only trouble is of course, you guessed it, the language.
I'm sure you get this a lot, a billion and one people wondering how to get a job in Finland when completely ignorant of Finnish and only knowing English.
I'm hopeful I could perhaps get ahead of the pile here. I'm a native English speaker (aren't I special, one in....half a billion?) and I also speak Swedish. I'm wondering- does knowing Swedish help in anyway in Finland? I've heard its supposed to have equal recognition but...from what I've seen in Finland the situation on the ground really doesn't reflect this let alone the world of work. Would knowing Swedish help in anyway?
Also...with Finnish being such a difficult and obscure language...is there much in the way of international companies which operate in English?

So yeah...I'm probally another no-hoper. I know that. Still though I must wonder.

[Rosamunda]

The big IT companies generally use English as their working language.

One of the biggest is http://www.tieto.com/

and then all the consulting firms like Accenture

and then the brokers like http://www.ework.eu/index.cfm?SET_LANGUAGE=eng

Swedish might be helpful. I know quite a few IT/Telecoms people who work here and don't speak any Finnish.

[rinso]

The only trouble is of course, you guessed it, the language.

Maybe it is more like the top of the iceberg.
IT and English is a good combination, but IT and experience is a much better one.

[inkku]

Hi,
socialism ...
obscure language....

Great start, i would say.

[Josq]

Great start, i would say.

I mean no offence, I like the socialism and most Finns seem proud of how very 'alternative' their language is (I've a bunch of Finnish friends. Lived with one last year).

Maybe it is more like the top of the iceberg.
IT and English is a good combination, but IT and experience is a much better one.

Yeah, true.

Swedish is the native (and daily) language for about 6% of the population, but I have a hunch the number of companies using it is considerably lower - my guess is a good proportion of those Swedish speakers end up using Finnish in the workplace simply because most other people in business speak Finnish. There are probably more businesses operating in English than Swedish, but it's still a pretty low percentage.

I think you're already fairly aware of what your difficulties in finding work here would be. But I guess it depends on your speciality field(s). Although it will be painful and slow, have a look on job search sites to see what's in demand here. Oh, man. Why isn't there a sticky thread anywhere here with a guide to using http://www.Monster.fi with a bunch of glossary terms translated? Sigh. See how you go with searching monster for English terms like "experience", "salary" and "hour". Any ads returning in English are likely to be a good lead for you.

Does monster.co.uk with the search country set to Finland not bring up the same results?
If its different....damn I've been doing things wrong for the past month or two

[Felidae]

You can also try this one, many of the job descriptions are in Finnish, though:

http://ec.europa.eu/eures/main.jsp?acro ... tegory=482